Vail Systems Joins Microsoft's Speech Partner Program

DEERFIELD, IL - Vail Systems announced its membership in Microsoft's Speech Partner Program (SPP) and outlined plans to offer applications and voice hosting solutions based on Microsoft's Speech Server. The company will initially roll out a SALT (Speech Application Language Tags) version of its Address Capture product, with other applications to follow. Plans for tiered hosting packages using Microsoft's Speech Server were also announced to meet demand for outsourced speech solutions.

With these new offerings, Vail will enable application prototyping and deployment on its network for companies working with Microsoft speech technologies. Enterprises, service providers, system integrators, and value-added resellers will be able to add speech-driven wireless and wireline telephone access to web applications and integrate voice and data services, including call center customer service, workforce communications, and supplier systems integration.

"Vail looks forward to working together with Microsoft to deliver compelling speech applications and to meet new opportunities in the growing speech application services market," said James Whiteley, president and CEO of Vail Systems. "Adding a Microsoft Speech Server solution to the Vail Voice Platform offers even greater flexibility for our customers."

Companies choosing to build their own architecture based on the Microsoft Speech Server will have the option to license complete packaged applications or core application modules from Vail that can be incorporated into existing solutions. In addition, following the model of today's web services technologies, companies can choose to host all or part of a given application on Vail's Voice Platform. This approach is designed to provide the greatest flexibility possible as enterprises increase adoption of speech technologies and integrate them with legacy systems. For example, with Vail's Address Capture product, callers dialing an enterprise main number can be transferred to a sub-module that automates an address change request or the application can be designed to answer address-related calls directly.

"These companies share our vision for making speech a mainstream and pervasive technology, and we are very proud to welcome them into the Microsoft Speech Partner Program," said James Mastan, director of marketing for the Speech Technologies group at Microsoft Corp. "It is because of companies such as Vail Systems that we are able to extend the delivery of the Microsoft Speech Server, enabling enterprises to deploy sophisticated speech-enabled solutions and applications that deliver significant business value."